B2B Community Builder Show (formerly Chief Executive Connector)

133 | Rebuilding The Ultimate Sales Machine w/ Amanda Holmes, CEO of Chet Holmes International

• Pablo Gonzalez / Amanda Holmes • Season 3 • Episode 133

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Amanda Holmes is the CEO of Chet Holmes International. 

Her dad, Chet Holmes, wrote The Ultimate Sales Machine, built an empire off it, passed away, and left her a company she didn't originally want... until she felt there was a special community that was being served by this work.

Since then, all she's done is double the profits of the company multiple years in a row... by following her dad's formula for success!

We had an incredibly deep, intimate, and practical conversation about the value of community, growing up with a successful dad, and how to find fulfillment.

All in a penthouse suite in Vegas as we prepared for an experiential marketing event

I'll never forget this conversation.

Connect with Amanda!

UltimateSalesMachine.com
Twitter: @amandaholmes
LinkedIn: Amanda Holmes
Instagram: @AmanditaHolmes


Connect with ME!

Also, I'd love it if you connected with me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Or shoot me an email at youshould@connectwithpablo.com with the "Heard B2BCB Amanda" in subject.

This that's a genius email address?  Me too, but I didn't come up with it.  It was the idea of my good friend, and super talented web designer, Nathan Ruff.

If you want your website redone, updated, and managed with unlimited updates for just $250/month (CRAZY GOOD DEAL RIGHT??), go to Manage My Website and hookup with one of the smartest, most talented guys I've ever met- THE Nathan Ruff.


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Pablo Gonzalez:

welcome to the B2B community builder podcast. I'm your host, Pablo Gonzalez and chief executive connector. And, we are in Vegas doing a content activation where Amanda Holmes has been so gracious as to accompany to us and, and be on this journey of what we're doing. Amanda is the CEO of Chet Holmes international, and kind of the, you're the steward of a beloved brand. Yes. Which is cool. Thank you. And not just a beloved brand, meaning the ultimate sales. But a beloved brand that is beloved for the impact it has created in people's lives.

Amanda Holmes:

Very much so. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

That's cool. Let's talk about what we're doing, right? What what'd you say no, for Amanda

Amanda Holmes:

all started. It was really interesting. I, I heard you speak and I was enthralled by this idea that you did. I mean, I don't know how much those that have watched have heard, but, Paula did this wonderful case study where he took a podcast. Oh, okay. All right. And it generated, in the five figures. Yeah. And then he did another podcast and it generated tens of millions of dollars and his method of how he does content to produce. Great relationships that produce revenue was just fascinating to me. And that was really the draw that then said, I'm doing one of these. And I said, oh, sign me up. I'd love to see how you do this and be a part of it. And so I'm grateful to be here. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. It's cool, man. I'm happy. You're here too. Like, you know, this to me is a microcosm of, the value of having a stage, right? Like that's, whenever you have a stage getting to invite people onto it, right? It's this like awesome invite that you get to attract wonderful people. Cause most people that want to take the stage, have something to say, and they have something that they care about and it attracts really, really wonderful people. And you know, this podcast has been my stage for a while. Before that it was. charity groups, right? Like my stage was just like my 20 young professionals that I was a steward of. And I could reach out to the superintendent school and get breakfast with him because he's going to be speaking to 20 young professionals. Right. And now these, like, I'm really excited about the future of these content activations, right? Like this is, I came up with a word for it when I was on my creativity streak on the plane. But it's, it's content driven, content focused, experiential marketing, right. Something along those lines. I love that. Yeah. So, so I'm excited. I had, I'm just conceptualizing right now, the idea that this is going to be the first of many and you and me may do a couple more of these are a bunch more of these, but I also feel like. I'm going to be doing a bunch of these. And I have this invite to every time it's a new thing. It's like a new baby, right? Like I like to surf. Every wave is different. So every experience is going to be different. And every time I'm going to get a chance to invite somebody extraordinary, which I find really compelling, which I think is kind of cool. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. So that's awesome. I'm glad. I'm glad we could. All right, Amanda, I wanted to start with you on, we talk about this, that you are, you're the, you're the reluctant CEO that stepped into the limelight and have really embraced it and done very well. And the way that I understand it, the reason why you got over the reluctance and took it was because of this brand, that you're the steward of, right? Like this love of a community. Tell me a little bit about, tell me a little bit about how it all dawned on you that this was, ah, this is what I want to be doing.

Amanda Holmes:

Whew. Uh, well, some backstory for people a bit. So I was a singer songwriter, right? I had just released my fourth record. I went to music school, so no part of my father's organization. And then my father sadly passed and nine years ago, and, and there was no plan. There was no succession plan. There was nothing planned for me to step in. And for the first two years I looked around and went, okay, let me put a C-suite in here. Let me hire a CEO or a CTO or a CFO. I mean, we've assisted over 250,000 businesses around the world at this point. So my father's book, ultimate sales machine is in the top 10 was recommended sales books of all times. So I don't know it's in

Pablo Gonzalez:

the shot, but ultimate sales machine called classic.

Amanda Holmes:

So, um, yeah, it was a ginormous organization, all filled with executives, right? Our clientele were executives and here I am, 25, 26 looking at this. going Oh my God. I have nothing to be able to know how to be a part of this or do this. So I first started just by. Asking questions. I would peep in on calls and I would go, hi guys, who is that? Oh, it's Manda. Hi. You know, and, and as I started asking more questions, people said, you're asking the right questions, keep asking, you know, cause a lot of people walk into leadership roles and they think, oh, well I know everything. Let me tell you this. When do you ever get anybody to grow with you or, or to adapt And go with you so first it was a lot of questions.

Pablo Gonzalez:

When people were telling you that you were asking the right questions, what, what were those questions? Do you have a sense of

Amanda Holmes:

that? So for instance, we grew our following on radio and it just so happened that right as my father passed laws went by that you couldn't drive and hold a cell phone. So our call center, our call to action was call in to get this free report. So our calls dropped off significantly. So our lead source was in a real dire Strait and my father was the innovator and everyone else didn't know how to innovate. So we were running radio ads with his voice still a year after he had passed. The marketing team didn't know what to do with it. And then they were also having a hard time tracking the results. So I'm just trying to understand this puzzle, just like everyone else. Right. So I'm just asking questions, you know, what's our conversion rates and how do we know about this particular ad? How did it produce? Have we run other ads with different voices? Just simple things, intuitive questions, but yeah. Right, right. The intuition was there and, and, and I think there was so much overwhelm at the time that it was a little bit hard for people to see past that overwhelm. Okay.

Pablo Gonzalez:

All right. So then, so then talk me through it then. So you, you asking the right questions, you were questioning

Amanda Holmes:

yourself. Yeah. and then, so I study under an Indian Saint it's very long, but we just refer to her as Guruji. So she had told me that it would be wonderful that this legacy that my father had created. I could continue it on and, and give it a new life. And then that would be good for me. That would be what's best for me at this point, which at the time I'm like, that is crazy! There's no way that I could do that. Right. I just didn't think it was physically possible, but she assured me that it would be. And then what I really fell in love with was our people, our clients, I mean, it's a sales training is something that can completely change your world. Right? It takes a company from a million dollars to 5 million, from 5 million to 10 million from a hundred million and beyond. So, people will come back to me, you know, they would cry to me all the time about my father passing. They, they felt like it was their uncle or their father themselves. Right. That was the kind of bond that, that book and my father's trainings created for people. I even just had one last week of a gentleman. Who's like, I'm so grateful. I'm alive today because I got in a car crash last week. And your dad talked in the book about how to bounce back when you fall. Cause he got in a car crash and he explains this process. And he's like, if I hadn't read that I would have gotten, probably killed in this car crash, like the ring of his things. But the most miraculous gives and all around the world. I mean the book is in 13 languages. So I was just talking to a gentleman at the most recent thing that people have been telling me is that the book is second to the Bible. It's the, it's the book they read the most.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. And I've, and I've experienced this, right? Like every time, every time I pull you into a room, somebody in the room was like, oh my God, ultimate sales machine. And I'm like, this is cool. Right? Like this is what made me think of you for this. Right. Because I'm just like, I've never, I've never seen Amanda. And up until this weekend, it was all virtual rooms, but it still happened. Right? Like Alex was like ultimate sales machine when we hadn't even told him, um, which I find really fast. That's interesting. When you're talking about a process that takes somebody from 1 million to 10 million that is taking somebody from having eight to 10 employees to having 25 lives that they are now in charge of to, you know, being pretty sure that their kids can go to private school. All they want from that Delta between one to 10 million afford colleges and stuff like that. Yeah.

Amanda Holmes:

And, and if you look at organizations, 60% of companies don't make a profit. So at a million, maybe even some millionaires are making more than the$10 million companies. Right? They come to us in debt, they come to us, you know, how do we fix these bottom lines? We're just trying to keep the lights

Pablo Gonzalez:

on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I get it. I get it. I get it. That's really interesting. The impact. Right. So then, okay, so then now you, you start to have people feel like. This, this book, your father's training, the work that he's done and the bonds that he's how would you phrase it? Would you, would you, at that point think that it went from being a burden to being an honor. Do you think it went from being like a, did it become a what's the front to there of like the feeling of this thing?

Amanda Holmes:

It took a lot longer for it to become something really wonderful. Um, because it was a lot, of problems at first. So I would say six years worth of just everything you could possibly think that could go wrong. it's vicious, brutal. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't until much more recently that, and I spent a lot, I spent last year, I only worked one day a week and the rest of it, I was working in a nonprofit because I honestly. was like Are there good people in the world anymore. That's where I had actually brought myself until, I got brought onto a board of a company and I started watching how they interacted as a culture. And that started to warm me up again to the fact that there are wonderful organizations out there and people that really care. You just have to create that. And then you have to attract that with more people and make it very clear that that's your intention, right. And then you, that expands more and more. So I slowly got the belief back, but we still doubled sales last year. And I only worked one day a week.

Pablo Gonzalez:

That's not bad that the word that you wanted, there was the word I was thinking about intention. Like I, I do think to create a corporate culture to create any kind of culture within a group of people that is a good culture. It needs to be intentional. Yes. What did you see? What did you see this board doing that was intentional, that you then started applying.

Amanda Holmes:

the leader, I really loved the leader. He just, he always was very Frank and there in Missouri. And, I don't know if that has anything to do with it, something like I show up the first day. And one of the staff walks up to me and I'm like, how do you like working here? And he's like, if Tom Douglas told me to walk out into the middle of the street in traffic, I would do it. I wouldn't follow him to the middle of the street. And this is like, nobody's asking there's no cameras, no nothing. He's just speaking from his heart. I'm like, can I bring you over to the camera? Can you say that in front of the camera? Because it was so authentic and so real. He just, yeah, I think he upholds truth more than anything else. And he talks about that a lot and the transparency of that and the office authenticity and you really practices servant leadership. all of those things were very inspiring and because he held that so true. And he, you could tell that he upholded it with every fiber of his being that everyone around him. Made them level up and even the board I've heard that boards are terrible and that they're not so good. I've had my own. And it was interesting. but in his, every single member is like, what can we do to make this the best possible? It's not about, you know, a name or an ego in the door. Right. It's just, how can we provide the most value? And I think that that's magnificent. Did

Pablo Gonzalez:

you see them baking that in formulaically or is it such a strong leader? Because you know, it can come from one person and then kind of like what you described, right? Like, it sounds like your dad was kind of one of those guys and then when your dad wasn't around it all kind of like, what, what, what is, is there a ways to bake that in or is it, is it really driven by that top-down thing? I

Amanda Holmes:

should introduce you to Tom. He would do much better at it. I mean, he has a hundred staff and there, and I can see that the whole organization lives and breathes it. That is not my expertise because I walked into the wild. Right? My father had brilliant people around him and they'd worked with him for decades. So they were very loyal, but for some reason there was also kind of this cowboy piece as well. And when the sheriff wasn't around, it became, very intense. I would not say that I'm an expert on culture, but

Pablo Gonzalez:

yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So, all right. So then let's talk about leadership and let's talk about fathers, right? One of the things that I wanted to dive in to you with is this idea that I, I feel that you and I must have had some similar experiences growing up because my father was also, you know, your, your dad cut his teeth as the, guy that grew a bunch of Berkshire Hathaway companies, right? Yeah. My dad grew the portfolio of a very, very, you know, very, very rich family as well in Venezuela that own multiple positions across multiple industries. And that's why we moved so much around the world and air go. I grew up, you know, Mixing with CEO's and, you know, high power people. and I found it very, very normal and, and therefore I do find that I have this like, privilege of not being intimidated by a title, walking into a room ever. And not really like, you know, I guess I've never felt like I don't belong in any room. as a result of that, I wonder what your, you were telling me a little bit about how your dad would bring you guys on. Tell me a little bit about. Kind of like how you interacted, you know, something I'm really true. Tell me a little bit about how you interacted with your dad's business as a kid growing up and like

Amanda Holmes:

that life. I didn't, I didn't really know what he did when people would ask me what my father did. I, I don't know. He's got companies.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. I didn't know what my

Amanda Holmes:

dad did. It really, there's just, it's spanned over so many different things, right? 12 different companies. Yeah. But, I'm actually curious if you, if you don't mind. So when I was surrounded by all these brilliant minds, right. I, I found that it, that they were very passionate for the most part about what they did. My father surrounded himself by a lot of speakers and authors and leaders of industry, and to be able to have that leadership, they were very engaging and very interesting. And, and I could tell that they really believed in what they did because they were that by vicious type. Did you feel that, did that. Were you surrounded by that? I wondered,

Pablo Gonzalez:

no, I can't say, I can't say I was, I w it was surrounded by a bunch of, you know, my, my dad's circle when I, by the time that I got into like, the consciousness of it after, you know, after Spain in Spain, it was very old Spanish money, right? Like, the number one real estate holder in Spain is this guy, someone floated his who's like sixth generation, somewhat FLOTUS that has been breeding bowls for 200 years. And like, he serves up the bull fights in Spain and like the king hunts on his land and, you know, all this, like, really like, wow. fascinating, fascinating old world. And then, and then there was other people where we, like, we would stay at like, the El Casada is like private residence, you know, like weird stuff like that. And then, and then here in Miami, it was all a bunch of. Second generation, you know, like first-generation Cuban refugees that did well, that were then presidents of hospitals. And, but it was much more corporate America than presentation America. Right? Like it was, it was very much like the contractor that has a hundred million dollar business and the telecom company that has a million dollar business, but none of them grew through PR, not a single one. Uh, that is an

Amanda Holmes:

interesting distinction. Yeah. Okay. Cause a lot of my, my fathers were entertainers as well as you know, they made their money. Okay. Fascinating.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Did you grow up, did you have like a, like an endearing thing about it? Right. Like I think about these guys, like I think about like Julio and I'm like. Yeah. Why have you loved that? No, they were, they were just, they were, they were, I always, as a kid grew up just like assuming that the world liked me and I liked it back, I guess. Right. So the people that I was around, I just have this, this connection to, and I was a very outspoken kid, so adults took interest in me. and I, and I, you know, so I wonder, I, I kick it back to you. Like, did I imagine that you were an outspoken, like a young woman that could hold her eat with manners and be at a table and like, have a conversation

Amanda Holmes:

well, I, I can remember my father training, both me and my brother on how to do that. Right. and one of his favorite quotes was maturity is when all of your mirrors turn to windows, Okay. What does that mean? It means to look beyond yourself and really look through to other people to ask them questions to It's the same as it's not about being interesting. It's about being interested, right? So he would train us to, how do you ask the other person? What is, what are their interests? What, you know, I can't even talk surface level with people anymore. It's just so bizarre to me. I can't do the small talk thing. I have to better understand what makes you tick. What is interesting to you? I want to be interested by what makes you interested. I want to understand why that's interesting for you, right? So those, those kinds of questions. It was almost like a game. How much can we get them to speak more so that we better understand where they were coming from? At what age? At what age did that game start landing for you? Like at what age do you remember? The first time they were like, okay, so conversations are a game. Let's do this as far as I can remember. I don't know. I mean, I was very

Pablo Gonzalez:

talkative. Yeah. We see, we weren't, we, we were not taught personal development as kids. Like, you know what I mean? Like, to me like your, your dad, your dad's like in greening, personal development and stuff like that, we were just taught manners. We were taught, you know, like family values. Okay. But family values are not exactly congruent with personal development often, you know? Right. Like old world, Hispanic family values are really just like, no, no, no, no, no. Here's the perimeter and no more growth. This is it. This is us. That's them. so that's interesting. So that's. So, so

Amanda Holmes:

you're on that continuum. So like one of my father's favorite questions he would always ask is if you could go back to the age of 14, knowing everything you know now, but you'd lose everything that you have. Would you do it or would you rather con yeah. that's the question

Pablo Gonzalez:

So knowing everything I know now, of course who wouldn't do that. A lot of people wouldn't, they'd be like, what if I don't meet my wife? What if I don't have my children? I, they would be too afraid to lose what they have now to go back to that age. Huh. That never crossed my mind,

Amanda Holmes:

but it, it strikes great conversation as well. It's like, you know, that's a question that really asks at the heart of somebody's who are you and what makes you tick and what's important to you.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. So what's, who are you? What makes you tick what's

Amanda Holmes:

important to you? Yeah. See, I don't even know, man, going back to 14 would be great. Really a lot. I've crammed a lot in I'm one of those that like has to cram 60 seconds out of every minute. So it's a lot of living,

Pablo Gonzalez:

you know, I'm not somebody that has, I agree with the overall tenant of like, I don't want to be anywhere, but where I've ended up right now, but I also think more time. Sure. Right. Like I I'm, I, I guess I love life and I feel like I'm the best version I've ever been of myself right now. So why not?

Amanda Holmes:

That's wonderful,

Pablo Gonzalez:

which is where my answer of, of course, now that you say, what about if I never met my wife and I feel like a jerk?

Amanda Holmes:

No, but that's awesome. That shows you right. That you're just willing to go for an adventure. Right. It's fascinating. It's a great question. To start a conversation. That's more than just, you know, what's going on at business today. Right. Cause then when you really know the person, then it becomes something even more magical when you do become a business. Right?

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. I agree with that. I agree with that a hundred percent. So where is, what is your take on the role of community creation as far as how it affects the businesses that you've worked with, the business that you're working on right now? what's your take on it?

Amanda Holmes:

the best community I've ever been a part of is the non-profit divine bliss international. And that really has helped me sculpt my values in a really serious way. and I'm very grateful for that community. It's like a second family to me and we span across the world. So whenever I'm it just last week, I was driving at two in the morning and I was kind of falling asleep. So I called my, my friend in Thailand. I'm like, keep me up because it's broad daylight there. Right. I'm kind of a night owl. So I'll call one of my best friends in Australia who is a part of that group. And, there's a bunch in Singapore and then there's some in America as well. And, and that really taught me the value of, I think it's an, like an old, African tradition that you only go so far alone. If you wanna go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go as a team. Right. Yeah. And, watching my guru and how she taught that, that dynamic. And it took Years of working with all these different cause, especially with different nationalities, I'm sure you can relate to that. Right? Like everyone comes from a different, we'd be perpetually offending everybody because somebody from Asia feels that the American is too loud. Right. I was always told, I'm like, oh my God, what have I done now? But once you bridge those gaps and you understand where people are coming from man you just, the speed and the strength and the stability of a team is magnificent. That's where I've learned at more than one than what I've learned in Chi.

Pablo Gonzalez:

So I, 100% echo with that. To me, everything that I talk about in community, I am reverse engineering from non-profits.

Amanda Holmes:

Oh, okay. Oh, that's interesting. Okay.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Not that. Yeah. Kind of like you, right. Had a career got super involved in a nonprofit, the outlook of how we activate people when it's just for the greater good versus when it's a transaction has completely changed my life. Wow. Yeah. And, and that's even, even what, even the internet talk show is a evolution of how we hosted our young professional meetings and how we pulled off events and how I use it as a stage and how that got me then business. And like, it's all been an iteration through that. So I completely agree. Have you, have you made some of those bridges, have you, have you done any of that stuff from like seeing how the non-profit and everything that you were doing works? Like, why don't we take some of this non-profit framework and put it over here? Have you done it?

Amanda Holmes:

Yes, definitely with my team. I mean, empowering my team. So when I first came into the business, it was all about, let me prove myself. I'm going to prove to you guys that I can do this. Right. So I bring in the biggest client, watch me double our marketing, right. Watch me, you know, innovate our sales team. So it was all about like, let me prove myself because that was kind of needed too. But at some point, and I was really blessed to be around, you know, world class people. So I got to absorb a lot along the way, but, but at one point I started realizing, well, if this is just the Amanda show, what's the real point here, right? What are we trying to do? We're trying to impact as many people as possible and give them something that's proven something that's decades. Right. And it doesn't have to be Amanda doing everything, which was a big, a big realization and then giving others the platform to be able to rise up and stand as leaders themselves. Right. That's when I took on, I have a little intern that's 12 years old. He's amazing. Yeah. He's amazing. He has domestic. Yeah, well, no, he's in Canada. Okay. but he has reviewed a hundred products on his YouTube channel. He's 12, he's already released a course to teach other young children how to use video in their marketing efforts. It's insane what this kid can do. And I'm so proud of him and I just want to lift him up. Right. Like that is just so magnificent. And I want everybody in my organization to grow and feel that, whereas before it was just about what can I prove? Right. So it was a competition with all of my staff, which, you know, got me to one place, but it's not going to get me to the next place.

Pablo Gonzalez:

So how does that application change? Right. So when you're going from, like, I'm gonna carry this thing, you guys are going to have to compete with me to no, no, no. I want to enable people to grow. How does your interaction change? How does your approach change?

Amanda Holmes:

So, and we find this very often with CEOs, right? So you walk into a meeting and you go, okay, this is what we're going to do. These are all the steps, and this is what I want done. Right. Because the CEO has to be confident. The CEO has to come in, they have to be the brains. Right. And then how often does the actual team implement that idea? Right. Well, it's boss's idea. I'm not responsible. for it Right? Whatever he said, just to be able to go. Yeah. Here's another idea. Right? He's read another book. Right. Whatever it may be. but, so instead of coming to every meeting, feeling like I'm on the spot of, I have to prove something now it's, I am here to discern, I am the discerning factor. You come to me with the decisions, if something, if you're stuck, but I'm relying on you to provide the answers, to provide the solutions, like giving you the platform to be able to rise up. I might even say, this is something that I'm working. on What are your suggestions, as opposed to, I felt that I had to come up with every answer and that doesn't it create a sustainability amongst my staff. Yeah. You're teaching

Pablo Gonzalez:

people how to make decisions instead of making decisions for them.

Amanda Holmes:

Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. I like that. That's cool.

Amanda Holmes:

Teach that. That's part of the book too. Right. I'm like reading in the book and I'm like do this. Right. So there's systems of how to do that and foster that and create accountability and create responsibility. And yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

I'm sitting here trying to digest the idea that you're navigating your dad's legacy with a manual that your dad left you. Yeah. So that's so deep to me. And I think about the role of content as a legacy, right? Like what we talked about at lunch, this idea that I really wish that my. You know, my, my brother used to right. Everybody in the family, we have like a family, like Yahoo group from like 25 years ago. And um, every time it was somebody's birthday in that group, my brother would write them a poem. And my, and my mom has like the whole list of the, of the, of the poems. Right. And then I have this like one video of my brother's scene in the car. And I think about the idea that in two years I'm going to be my brother's age when he passed. And like, have I, was he right? Or was he not right? You know, like, like I, you know, it was, so

Amanda Holmes:

what do you mean by that? Was he right? Or was he

Pablo Gonzalez:

this work thing specifically? I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about the fact that he told me at one point that he's like, I've already peaked. And, um, you know, I've had to like accept the fact that I've already peaked. And I was like, You've never peaked. Right? Like you've never peaked like that. A, that is a false thing. Right. Like I just did, I didn't have like the, the language back then. Cause I wasn't in personal development, I didn't have like false narrative and you know, whatever. and you know, like negative self-talk or whatever. Right. But like, I just, it just didn't make sense, sense to me. Right? Like I'm like no dog, like you are, you can always not peak cause like not cause once your trajectory is tapers off, you're done. So like I'm already at my peak, I made my peace and I wondered and I, and really I'll tell you right now where I'm at in life, I'm feeling like I don't really think that that's accurate, that I'm going to feel like I will have already have peaked by the time I'm 42,

Amanda Holmes:

but

Pablo Gonzalez:

no. No.

Amanda Holmes:

that's very common with athletes and that's why they crashed so hard. I mean, what is it like 80th or 90th percentile of athletes end up going bankrupt because they just

Pablo Gonzalez:

don't.

Amanda Holmes:

Yeah. I have a best friend who has said the exact same thing to me. He, he made, he had this one game that was so crazy. They won the SB for it. He like hit four home runs with a broken finger or something and he's like, I've peaked. I accepted it's okay.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Listen, that might be true for an athlete, right? Like if you can't redefined how to get your fix from something like, it's going to be really hard to be the camaraderie of a locker room. The adoration of like 40,000 people watching you do your job. Like I empathize for athletes, man. That's tough.

Amanda Holmes:

That's the same thing with astronauts and astronauts. Yeah. How okay. You've reached the moon.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Amanda Holmes:

yeah, yeah. So I get it. That is a very valid thing that people do say. Right. But

Pablo Gonzalez:

it's for him though. He just felt like at one point people saw me as this young guy with promising talent in my career, and now I'm just like a guy in the corner and I'm like, you can always redefine that, but it was pre internet of things so much. Right. Like, I mean, w I don't know, man, like, I guess I didn't understand all this stuff, but, so, so I think about that, I guess, I guess where I wanted to go with it is when you are going back to the book, like, is you interacting with the framework of this book and running this company, like an ongoing feeling of connection with your father? Honest question.

Amanda Holmes:

Yeah. Absolutely. I've done a lot of work on that, actually, because there's also a lot of work on just being able to realize who I am as an individual versus my father. So one of his growing up, he always said that I want you to do what you love and I've sacrificed my life so that you can do what you love. You know, what he really wanted to be. He wanted to be a movie director, so he wrote seven different screenplays. He sold one to Warner brothers. He made one independently and that was his love. And because he was so darn good at sales He just could not get away from how magnificent that was like career was. Yeah. So he told me and my brother, so my brother became an actor for some time and I was a singer. Right. So it was just like the arts, right. He wrote a couple hundred songs, he loved music. And, so that was part, that was my passion. And, um, so there was this question of, or still is this question of, okay, it's it wasn't even my father's absolute love. Right. And he passed at 55 and he never got to do that. So what is that for me? So there was there at the very beginning, there was a lot of friction of really going in into the business because my father died at 55 working himself into his grave. Right. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a fine line. of Honoring him while also honoring myself. And I'm still navigating that, right? Yeah. And I have taken years and lots of dedicated time towards the non-profit, which I'm very, very passionate about. you know, I watched, I lived in the hospital with my father for a year and a half while he was going through his cancer treatment. And we went to 200, the top alternative doctors during that point. And that's how I met my guru was, uh, through the search and I became so passionate about health. And how can you be preventative about health? How can you use your own thoughts and the way you think and the way you live to be healthy and happy and wiser. So that's something that I, I have to do. I have to do as far as music. I don't know if I'll ever go back to that, but, but I I've done heaps of work to recognize that my father did one thing and this is what I'm doing. And. Yeah. And it's a continual process.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah, it's funny, man. I heard one of the, one of the things that I heard early on in my entrepreneurial journey that really rings true to me. That, that makes me want to repeat this. As you're saying this is the freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. Freedom is the doing Right. And I hear that in. I hear that in what you're saying, right? Like it's like, where is the, what's that fine line of freedom of like, is this what I really want to be doing? I mean, it is obviously what you want to be doing, but long-term, what's the, what is that you want to be doing kind of thing, right? That, that, that you're asking. And the other thing that comes to mind is this idea of, I do think that somewhere in your, for me, it was in my late twenties, early thirties, that I finally realized where my family ended and I began, right. Like how much of the stuff, you know, there's a lot of stuff that I carry with me that is family, but then there's some stuff that I dropped off at the door.

Amanda Holmes:

Huge. We all have that. We all have that. And it we're dictated by this frame that we believed, you know, my brother was the smarter one. My sister was the successful one. Right. I'm the, whatever I am. Right. And, and we think that that's what defines us. I thought I'm a 24 year old singer song writer. How could I ever right I'm not a sales executive. And the more that we can work internally on those ideas and those thoughts and identify what they are, and then be willing to accept that and say, okay, I'm going to be the best version of myself, whatever that may be. I think that intention holding that every day and it's not even like every day, it's like, it's nearly on the hour. Like I have to verbalize to myself, I verbalize, I grant myself permission to connect to my higher self that's. That's my saying that I repeat all the time. I gave myself permission to connect to my higher self because yeah, it's so easy to. Be victim of your fears and your anxieties and your angers and your past traumas and your belief systems. And, you know yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

When you're saying this, what I'm hearing is that the key is to continue to seek it.

Amanda Holmes:

Yes.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Right? So it's like, wherever you're at right now, as long as you're still seeking it, as long as cause you might be, this is what I want to be doing, but I'm still going to continue to seek whether or not this is

Amanda Holmes:

what I want to be doing or not. Yeah. Cause you make decisions every single day that can change that or alter that,

Pablo Gonzalez:

or something happens in your life where all of a sudden, what you're wanting to be doing is no longer what you want to be doing. And we should have the freedom to do that.

Amanda Holmes:

That's when peaking, I think that's the difference in peaking. Right? You may have had something. But, but if you're staying, if you're being clear that your intention every day is I'm going to be the best version of myself, then you can continually transform and adapt and you're checking in and define something different. Maybe I'm getting the praise from others was important. But then in the next phase of his life, maybe it was with his family or, you know, within himself, which is

Pablo Gonzalez:

what became his last, you know, like as he was going, it was really all about family and happiness and, you know, that's kind of, that's where you go, right?

Amanda Holmes:

Yeah. Yeah. You think that it's a monetary thing, but then you have your first child. You're like, Nope. That was the best. One of the best moments in my life was seeing my daughters and my

Pablo Gonzalez:

son. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So we've talked about the book is a queen on the chess board of condoms. Right. Like, we've seen it serves as a piece of legacy. Right. It serves as it drives a community. Right. Like everybody that identifies with that book is like, oh, move the horse. What's up. Right. That's awesome. what are you? I know you're a pretty prolific content creator and you have a list and you're doing, how do you, what, what do you think about content overall when it comes to you? You serve all these different businesses, right? Like w what's your mindset right now around content and growing businesses?

Amanda Holmes:

Well, I'll tell you one funny thing. So the publisher had told my father don't put all of this great stuff in one book. They're like, are you kidding me? This should be eight books. And he's like, no, this has to be the best freaking thing ever. Right? Like the publisher actually told him to stop putting so much. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? That's such a typical story. Oh, one of my favorite sayings from that too is as he's like, give your best stuff for free. That's why he didn't hold one thing back in that book, because you feel like you have to covet it. You know, you come up with a good idea and you're like, I don't want anybody to know, but then nobody finds out about your good idea. Right. So getting it out there and, and making that, I think that's hard for a lot of people is when they're doing content, they're not leading with their best material. They're saving it best for last. Right. Don't save that, put, put that right out there. Right. And get it clear and get it into a system. And yeah. Right. A lot of people have these ideas, but then they don't develop them into a, my father was just brilliant at that. Right. Magnificent about creating a system around it. How many people have, have decided I'm going to find a big client and I'm going to win a big client, right? It's it's like as old as sales, right? But my father put a title to it. He called it the dream 100. He said, this dream 100 is the fastest least expensive way to double sales. And let me tell you a story about how I doubled the sales of nine different divisions for a billionaire by the name of Charlie Munger. Co-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, right? He, oh, it gives me chills still is so silly, but he had a great title. He had a catchy phrase that hooked everyone, like who doesn't want the fastest, most expensive way to double sales. We had a story that backed it up with that social proof of what he did. Right. And now, you know what I say, it is the one strategy that has doubled the sales of more companies than any other. And now we can actually say that because it has, because it's gone just beyond my father. Right. So. Building a process and a system and a way of telling that story and packaging it, man, that package is so brilliant. I'll tell you a really quick story. The first lemonade stand I ever did, I was like nine and I went to my dad and I'm like, okay, I'm going to do my lemonade stand 50 cents. And he was like, no, this is what you're going to write on your lemonade stand flyer. You're going to say world's best lemonade,$1. And I'm like, dad, everyone else at 50 cents. Just put it on the sign and put it out there. And I will tell you I got more lemonade and more people to stop because they couldn't believe the gumption of a, nine-year-old saying world's best lemonade. First person that asks is this really like what makes us the world's best lemonade? And I'm like my dad told me too, I got a little bit smarter after that, but it, the packaging, the way that you place it and then repeating that over and over and over again, I think that that's crucial. There's a lot of content out there and people can really, you know, go 50 ways to Sunday. But if you can create that story and really with pigheaded, discipline and determination, keep repeating it. Then I think that that's really a really powerful thing. And, and then the content that I'm creating all just brings it back to his timeless stuff. Right. So I can create something. That's relevant today with contextualize contextualize. Yeah. Yeah. With more stories of another person. Did you hear about this person,

Pablo Gonzalez:

right? Yeah. I think you nailed it right on the head. I think it's give your best stuff away for free. And whenever you're working on something, be conscious of what you're doing so that you can describe it later. And then once you figure out what you did, then you package it and you package it with a title. Yeah. This is what it is. This is how I did it. This is how you can do it. That is infinite. That is infinite content. Yep. Right. And, and the hook point is story as old as time, right? Like, it's like, I want to say to your boy, Russell Brunson. Cause I see it all the time, but like Russell Brunson hook story offer, right? It's like, it's like hook, that's a catchy title and the value prop story. Right. We all relate to stories that is a contextualization via a pattern that you can tell them. And then what's your offer, right? Is your offer now you want to do business with me or is your offer just like I said, something in interesting enough for you to want to be my friend.

Amanda Holmes:

Yeah. Right. And I, and I think, also when it comes to content, so the way that I test my content is I perpetually talk about it with different people and I watch their behavior. Right. Like, so I've been talking about the new edition of the book. Right. I'm writing the new edition of the book. Right. And so I've been talking about this for two and a half years and I've been working on it and writing it. yeah, it's taken a lot, but I want it to be magnificent. Right. And that my dad took 50 years to write that book. So it's okay if I'm taking two and a half. Right. But, I really watch people's reactions. Right. So one of the chapters is the encore that my father never got to give. Right. And I told you that. Do you see his response? Right. So as soon as I saw one person's response, I was like, Ooh, that's good. That might be something that I should continue to say. And then I kept repeating it to people and it hits. It's still hitting

Pablo Gonzalez:

you. Yeah. It's still like, I'm having goosebumps right now because it's the again. Perfect, perfect, perfect case. In point, the Encore, my net, my father never got to give, I'm curious. I was working late night. I found this email. That was my dad's final chapter that he never got to put into it. Yeah. I have chills right now, all over my body. Right. And whatever, whatever that is. I want to read, I want to read it

Amanda Holmes:

perfect packaging. Right. But I think that people kind of like, just put things on social media or they're like, they put ads to something or they just, they're not watching human behavior. Right. There's something to be said when you watch someone's facing, you tell them, and you see how their body reacts to it. If like. I've also been saying that part of what I want to talk about is self-mastery and people don't really have the same response. They're kind of like, yeah, yeah. That sounds like work. Right? So I'm like, okay, packaging isn't there yet. That is not, that's not how you sell this. Right. Which is interesting. You have to find the right thing and just keep testing it. Right. But watching the human response, because we go so online so quickly today, it's hard to bring it back to that. human

Pablo Gonzalez:

That is, that is exactly why I think that EV like The fundamental mistake people make with content is that they think audience in instead of relationship out. So if you can, whatever you're doing in content and what you think, if you're number one, I would say, make content with a buddy, right? Like exactly what you're saying. Right? Like you're, you are iterating through your content by like seeing how I react to it. And if you can capture something that makes me react in that way, On video, then I might not react the same just on like a screen, but it might be 85, 90% of it, 95% of it. And that's pretty freaking good scale, man. So, so that, that is a perfect example of that, right? Like this idea of what works person to person is what works in content.

Full Interview:

Yeah. I think that's why this whole journey of human to human has happened. Right? It's not B2B it's not B2CB it's H to H it's human to human it's heart to heart because it's true. It's so easy. So for a period of time, I didn't see any of our, the majority of our clients go through my sales team. They go to my coaches and my consultants and my presenters and all of this. I really only get to work with the fortune 500 in our bigger clients. Right. So I'm missing a huge gap of them and it started to become just kind of numbers. Like what's the open rate, what's the click through rate, what's the purchase, you know, what are your sales? So. This last, just in the last six months. And I also did it two years ago where I drove around the United States and I just said, I want to meet you. Let's just meet face to face. I want to be in your office. I want to be in your hometown. And let me just interact with you because I had lost that. I had been too far away from it and it was really interesting. It's been interesting to see that and to learn listening and observing.

Pablo Gonzalez:

What's the biggest takeaway that you took out of one of those trips that you would not have had if you didn't go and sit down in someone's office? Like, is there, you don't have to say who, but like, is there, is there like something that you think about it? I was like, oh my God, we have to do another thing, everything wrong. Cause you were there. Hm.

Amanda Holmes:

you want to know the truth? Okay. I made it. I'm like, I couldn't be more professional and say the truth. say something else. But honestly, my last, I just, toured California and, and I saw a bunch, I just segmented my list. How often do we do this? Where we just like go to our email database and say, I'm going to be in this city. Are you there? Yeah. Right, right. We're going on your Facebook page every time I'm going to a city, I'm going my face for patient who lives in this city. Yeah. Message me. Or I go to my text messages and I'm looking through my address book to see, because over the last, you know, 30 years I've made all these relationships that I just totally forgot about. And I'll reach out to someone I haven't talked to him in 15 years or whatever. So, so I said, I'd like to meet with, with whoever, you know, just tell me and the resounding the one thing that people just kept saying, as I met with them was, you know, we know that you've taken it over and you've done such a great job, and we're really proud of you and your father will be proud of it. But we know it's not your passion. What are you doing about your passion? Every single one, these people don't even know me. Right. They don't know me, but I mean, they see me maybe with my content and they get different materials over the years and they've watched me. Right.

Pablo Gonzalez:

They know you well enough to look into your soul and tell you that

Amanda Holmes:

on a repeated basis, Spanish, you call

Pablo Gonzalez:

that coffee and SU that's really just like you're in there.

Amanda Holmes:

Well, maybe I also give that to, to give that off that I wear my heart on my sleeve. That's right. So that was weird to get as feedback. So much feedback like that. It was, it was bizarre for me. And I'm like, okay, I'm the full on anybody here? Yeah. I I'm honoring my father, but there's also there's things that I have to do too. Right. And I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful that the nonprofit that I have found that in that there's things that I do there, that really mean something to me. Yeah. That was interesting.

Pablo Gonzalez:

So based on that feedback, do you approach the way that you communicate with people differently? Like, are you, are you going to open up about talking about that? Like if, if, if the emperor has no clothes anyways, are you going to still pretend to have

Amanda Holmes:

clothes? It has adjusted what I'm writing in the final chapter. I'm doing my marketing right. Self, the self mastery chapter. Nobody wants to hear that.

Pablo Gonzalez:

No, but it could be the emperor has new clothes, new chapter,

Amanda Holmes:

right? No, it did. it did adjust cause I'm in the throws of that right now. Right. I was just telling you, I was doing it this morning for six hours, but I like to write in the middle of the night too. I'm very good at like start at like 1:00 PM 1:00 AM and go until four or five. But, yeah, it's, it's, I'm just taking the feedback and seeing how I need to pump it. Right. Just clear that I'm, I'm working towards being the best version of so it's good feedback. Based on your understanding of what you've seen from all of these successful, wealthy people, what would you define as a successful life? Like, or maybe, maybe, how did that impact you in your pursuit of your own life?

Pablo Gonzalez:

I don't know if I was impacted positively by, at all. And I don't know what positive or negative is with it. All. It dawned on me in my late twenties, how privileged I've been and how much I've taken it from her. Mm. At 28, I left the fortune 500 and took some time off. And it was the first time that I started doing my own laundry ever. I didn't know how to do laundry. I lived, I mean, you want to get personal? I lived in California for five years out of the guys changed my bedsheets. I was an animal, like I think, I think back to, I think back to some of that stuff. So I have a weird mix of having come up with the first generation of helicopter parent newness in a world that wasn't American. Right? Like, so that came with. I guess, I guess the positive way that it's affected me, right. Is this, since I've never been monetarily driven, I assume that shit just happens. It's there. I've had the good fortune to never have that cloud. My judgment I've been successful enough where I've never been desperate at no point. Do I think that well, if everything goes south, I can't. Yeah. Just go home to my parents and stay with them if I want. Right. I don't want to do that. I'm 40. Right? Like I don't want to live my parents, but I do think that it is a buoyant force in what hope and expectations of yourself can be right with, with, with what the fear is. Right. So on a very positive way it's grown up around success has unclouded my judgment on how little the financial part of it matters. When it comes to pure happiness and joy. And what matters is the relationships that you have around you, be it with your family or with the people that you work with, or the people that you're friends with and how rich those are. And I've never really expressed it that way, but it's very clear to me that that's the case. Even today. I am still not transactionally driven. I am relationship driven. And what is driving me now to continue to Excel is this idea that I now have a team of Like those relationships drive me, man. Like, like the idea that the idea that Gina could have an amazing life based on a piece of pie that I can grow and put her in a position, right? Like our, one of our, our first core value is pursuit of happiness. And to me, the pursuit of happiness is. Figuring out what you're really good at that you love to do, figuring out how to do that, to serve others, then figure out how to serve others with that thing that you're good at, that you love to do and monetize it in an authentic fashion that doesn't take away from the integrity of it. And then it's like, if you're doing that and that's what you're monetizing, you're happy, man. So then, so then the next step is like, okay, then do you want to build a business and scale around that or not? And if you can be someone that gets to that point of scaling that business around it and what you make the scale of your business around it be, how can I create these roles for people to do what they love doing that they're really, really good at and be doing that all the time. That's when you're, that's when you're providing that true joy for people. Right? So I. Look long answer longer. I think that, that's what it is. It took away. It took away that governor of scarcity for me, and that's the positive side of it, the negative side of it. It made me very, very complacent. And I don't know if that's negative, right? Like I, I think that there's no growth without struggle and not knowing what struggle is for 32 years of my life until my brother got I want to try that. Like, I'm good, man. Like, you know, I, I feel like I'm playing with house money. Like, you know, the rest of my life could be struggled, but I had these like first 30 years of my life that I shit, you not, there was no problem that I had that I didn't create on my own. Like everything else around my life was very sad. And I can't discount how instrument until that was to forming me as such a positive person. And which I think is something that opens a lot of doors for me. Right. So I dunno, I think that's the overall effect that had on I don't think I ever once, as a kid was like, oh, I need to see what Ariana is doing. And I want a copy of that, or I want to see what, you know, my father's associates were doing and, and, and try to deconstruct that in any way. And I was never instructed in that manner. Sure. Now I'm obsessed with it. Right. Like now I'm like, oh, okay. So I say, I was seeing a lot, cause he's the guy that, he's the guy that acquired my consulting company. And then I went in house for him and he had just gotten bought out by OHL, which is just like international conglomerate. And I went to work for him. And he's the guy was a comedian. Right. Like he built his business by being a face to the community and being part of nonprofits and all this other stuff. And he very much mentored me in that way when I was working for him and then like all great entrepreneurs when they get bought out by a giant conglomerate, safe, how cute guys I'm out. And, and then the company with shit, you know, like, yeah, yeah, no, but it's, I mean, it's fine. Right? Like he left it here. He left the team of just like very closely knit people. And that was the first example of really seeing that. Right. Like I've I never saw that with my dad, even though I know my dad was that kind of leader, because when we went back to Spain, after not being there for 15 years, he got approached by like the bar manager of the quarter glass, like coffee shop was like, are you hungry? You know, like, and we're like, oh my God, I must've been in the eighties. It was the only time we were happy. and yeah, so, you know, like stuff like that, but I never, I never, like, I never kind of contextualize that stuff. But working for Augustine was very clear to me that dislike benefactor of society is a great figurehead for our company. And then being part of nonprofits and being on the boards of nonprofits, I realized really quickly that I am someone that's always been obsessed with access and the people that have the most access in Miami at least are the ones that serve the most wonderful, right. So that, that's kind of like my fault. That's kind of like my full arc. And then at that point it became window instead of mirror, it became, okay. My job is not to be the coolest person in the room. My job is to see how many people I can feel like they're the cool, that's wonderful.

Amanda Holmes:

I love that approach.

Pablo Gonzalez:

This was I feel like you just got me talking for like 12 minutes to finish that thing, which isn't how it's supposed to be. Amanda, if somebody wants to get ahold of you, what's the best way to get into your universe?

Amanda Holmes:

I would recommend ultimate sales machine.com. There's a video on, there's actually three videos and the one hour, a week formula to help you double your sales. And we give that complimentary. So that's a great gift that everyone can get. Ultimate sales machine.com like the book. and then I play around on social medias. You can find me there. My name, if you go on Instagram though, it's a mandate that because it's my salsa name, Amanda. All

Pablo Gonzalez:

right, cool. who do you, you're somebody with like a top pool 0.01% world-class network. How do you, how do you choose who you grow relationships with these days?

Amanda Holmes:

I spent a good amount of time. In a very quiet place in a healing center could basically have been India, but it was in Tampa, Florida. I'm aware for a period of time. I, I talked more with plants than I did people. And, uh, so I had just recently come out of that quiet, still place. And, I think it also healed a lot of what had happened previously with relationships in my life and, you know, people see money, they attack it. So, I had an, a bit of that. and now my approach is, is more looking for people that have that similar mindset of wanting to give or looking for a greater purpose. And,, I find myself building those relations. With those people, as well as, um, lately I've been really delighted. And some of the people that I've been interacting with that, have gotten to a place in their business where they've matured past the, I need to be a part of every day to day, responsibility. Right. And it's more empowering their teams. And because I had really been, I didn't have any friendships that were like that because when I was in my early twenties, I was running a couple hundred staff. Like nobody, my age was in that at all. So finally, now some people around kind of my age demographic are starting to have the maturity of business that I have been experiencing for a bit. So that's been really, really nice where, you know, we can talk about our assets or what we're investing in and, you know yeah. So that, that's a personal answer. Yeah, yeah,

Pablo Gonzalez:

yeah, no, that's what I was looking for. Listen, I'm really grateful that for whatever reason we get the chance to grow up. Yeah.

Amanda Holmes:

So, you know, we have a lot of similar

Pablo Gonzalez:

values, I think so too. And I think that that's the key, right? Like I think no matter what culture or whatever, like if you can, Jerry talks about all the time, core values are like the bumper lanes, right? Like if you can, if you can have, if you have similar core values and you're out there kind of espousing your core values, you kind of frictionlessly attract people that fit within that.

Amanda Holmes:

Right. I believe in that whole heartedly.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. Yeah. Like it's going to be impossible to be my friend. If you are constantly using single use plastic containers at some point, at some point you're going to get a reusable water bottle because I'm going to be giving you environmental demerits all the time. but yeah, like I, I like, I just, I brought that up to say that I'm really grateful that you and me have been able to get to this point. And, I look forward to continuing our friendship. Doing stuff together and keep adding value to each other's lives. Thanks for that. Thank you. Alright,